I'm getting the hang of this quote box thing!



Maybe I've just been lucky, but I have exactly the opposite experience. At the private schools (2 of them now), I'm the customer. If they want my $ they have to keep me happy. When we were in public, I always felt like we were just a number on a roster somewhere. It was a "this is what you get, take it or leave it" feeling. While no bricks and mortar school is perfect, I've had little to no resistance to getting whole grade acceleration, subject acceleration and differentiation in the private school. IF I had been able to obtain that in public, it would have been with MUCH more effort. I'm not a confrontational person and filing lawsuits and the like would have caused way to much stress for me.

JBDad - you kind of sound like my DH in the GT denial area. He was incredulous when I told him that most kids entering kindergarten do not know how to read at all. Although we have not yet entered the school system, I'll let you know my experiences and plans as someone who has already gone through the assessment process.

We worried about waiting for kindy until our son was 5, a requirement in our state. He was reading at 2nd-grade level (based on book descriptions) when he was 3 1/2. Our state requires IQ of 130 to be early entranced, so we found a gifted specialist to test our son. We expected he would be MG, and were floored to find he had DYS numbers. The assessor told us that in our smallish district, our son would likely not find anyone like himself through high school. She recommended that we don't start K early, but let him have fun for another year learning at home. She made it clear we would have to be flexible in our education, and thought we would probably have to move at some point, and homeschool too. Our son is in a 2-day a week preschool, with a preschool teacher who gets him and provides advanced materials for him. We will keep DS in this preschool next year too (he doesn't turn 5 until next Jan).

DS4 is not one of those kids who will follow rules or sit still "just because." So, we're thinking that another year of maturing would be good, then we'll put him in K. We have good friends with a HG+ child who have been working with the school system for a few years now, and our schools are becoming more GT-friendly. We hope to talk with the school district ahead of time to find options for our son before he goes to K (e.g., reading group with older kids, etc., grade-skipping) We are taking a wait-and-see approach. If the school is willing to work with us, that would be the best. If not, we will ask for partial homeschooling. And if that doesn't work, we'll do full-time homeschooling.

We have found great benefits in our son's assessment. We received advice tailored to our son and our family and our needs. We now know the obstacles we will probably encounter, and we were given many resources to help us on the way. And we found out we were not crazy. It was a huge relief, in many ways.

Sure. I'm glad it's worked for your family.

I'm just saying that I think any private school is a caveat emptor situation, especially since many won't refund tuition if the school doesn't work for your child. If it's a bad fit, it could be an expensive bad fit.

I was really surprised about even private GT schools being trouble for DYS advocacy. That was downright shocking to me! I thought they would be the most flexible and receptive of all, but apparently there's no guarantee even there!

I guess that does make sense. If all the kids at the school are GT, and the school doesn't recognize LOGs, then maybe they'd be the least flexible option...

Anyway, carry on!

Way to go with the quote boxes CFK!

Chiming in about private schools. We live 45 miles from a major metro area, and I do know many of the "fabulous" private schools claim that they don't do GT because their curriculum is challenging enough for all their students. In our small city, where students are harder to get, it seems some of the very small private schools are more willing to work with you in tailoring education. Unfortunately, the one school with the advanced curricula in town (for many subjects...) doesn't happen to believe in dinosaurs, which would be a problem for DS4!

I agree with CFK’s post above regarding the difficulty of dealing with public schools in our area. That said, I think I would be very happy with some of the school districts just over the state lines.

Regarding the original question concerning skipping K, we have the unique perspective of one child who attended K for two years and one who skipped it altogether.

Our daughter was early entranced to K at private pre-K school and made to repeat it when we moved her to the public school because she missed the first grade cut-off by less than six weeks. The standards were lower for her second year of K at the public school. She had mastered every objective for the year (as listed on the report card) by age two. Yada yada yada, she was moved to Catholic school and skipped 2nd grade for an effective reversal of the public school retention and lives happily ever after!

Our son was early entranced to 1st grade at the same Catholic school, skipping K altogether. He had already “checked out” of pre-school two years prior. Luckily, his pre-school was flexible enough that they allowed him to read during nap time and play quietly with building materials instead of participating in circle time. They were also the first to mention the “G” word.

Skipping first hasn’t been enough of an accommodation for him, but I can’t even imagine how miserable he would have been had we kept him with his “legal” grade in our public district!

St. Pauli girl,
We happen to be Catholic, so sending our kids to Catholic school makes sense as we don’t have to worry about weekly religion classes for Communion and Confirmation preparation. That said, we send them to Catholic school for the more advanced education rather than religious training. Luckily, the curriculum is in agreement with mainstream education and science. This year, DS learned in-depth about human evolution in 6th grade and DD had very candid sex ed in 8th grade. Respect for religious diversity is also a prominent theme.

I would also avoid a school which claims dinosaurs never existed!

Hi JBDad:
We did skip K. Here's my son's story in a not so small nutshell:

Jan 2006, son was eligible for K entry in Aug 2006. We realized his abilities had already passed K expectations. Had him privately tested, confirmed this and had a report that said "he's already mastered all K curriculum."

March, 06: I attended the K orientation/registration. Was made painfully aware that the K curriculum would be a repeat of preschool/daycare - I mean REPEAT. And we were already having behavioral issues at daycare which I finally connected to his level of boredom. DH and I decided that for our child skipping K would be best. We decided this based on his personality (at the time very routine oriented, rigid expectations, highly emotional and intense) and his past experiences (daycare/preschool setting) and his ability/achievement scores.

June 2006: we had him privately tested at U of Iowa because the school refused to test before he was attending K. We felt quite strongly that K attendance would be setting him up for behavior problems - again, based on my son's personality and needs. We felt that starting K and then transitioning to 1st would be harder for him than just skipping K.

August 2006, two weeks before school was to start: met with school and reviewed the private testing report. Son had also been briefly assessed by the school psychologist the day before (at my insistence because no one at the school had even *met* my son yet wanted to make placement decisions!). We were prepared for a fight, but the principal opened the meeting and then announced that the staff was in agreement with skipping K. Basically the private report stated that K attendance would require "significant differentiation of curriculum" and I believe that the K teacher couldn't/wouldn't do that.

Today, he is finishing up 2nd grade, but in 3rd for math this year. We are looking for further differentiation and compacting next year, but not more skipping right now. It has been a good placement for our son, at our rural school. We are glad he skipped K and wouldn't do it any differently if we had to do it over.

Hope our experience helps you to make the right choice, although Carolyn "Hoagie" will tell you that you really sometimes need to choose the "least worst educational option" and be happy with that. There often isn't a "best option" for these kids. Best of luck. I'm sure you'll find the best answer. Advocate assertively, gently, persistently. It pays off. And remember that no one knows your child as well as you do.

Wow, lots of different viewpoints and experiences. To me it seems I can sum up by saying I have to pay attention to what is going on and research any learning option I am considering very carefully.

Dazey, I'm sorry about the horrid K situation. I'm going to read that book as well.

Reading the success stories helps me believe that I will also have a success story for my girls, I just have to figure out the right plan for them.

Neato

Sorry... looked around but didn't see it... what's "DYS candidate"?

JB

The subject has come up. It's not out of our reach, but it would be a strain. We'll going to consider all of our options...

BTW, it's really nice hearing how other's have dealt with this. Thanks.

JB

DYS is the Davidson Young Scholar program, through the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, that sponsors this board. Basically they are looking for kids that score beyond that 99.9th percentile. You can read more about it here...

http://www.ditdgifted.org/Article/Davidson_Young_Scholars_Program_147.aspx